Louise Achtenberg was born in Germany in 1849 or 1850. She came to the United States around 1880.
Achtenberg self-identified as a midwife, and was identified in newspaper articles as such, but was twice listed as a doctor in the Homicide in Chicago Database. It's possible that she was a physician, since at that time female doctors who practiced obstetrics were typically identified as midwives, though it is more likely that her self-identification as a midwife was the correct one. Either way, as a physician or as a midwife, she would have been typical of Chicago abortionists of the era.
She was implicated in five fatal abortions The following is the best chronology I can create of Achtenberg's victims, how she was identified at the time, and where she was living.
1900, per city directory, midwife, 4358 Dearborn St.
Achtenberg self-identified as a midwife, and was identified in newspaper articles as such, but was twice listed as a doctor in the Homicide in Chicago Database. It's possible that she was a physician, since at that time female doctors who practiced obstetrics were typically identified as midwives, though it is more likely that her self-identification as a midwife was the correct one. Either way, as a physician or as a midwife, she would have been typical of Chicago abortionists of the era.
She was implicated in five fatal abortions The following is the best chronology I can create of Achtenberg's victims, how she was identified at the time, and where she was living.
I can find no record that she was ever incarcerated.
*"Aged Woman is Acquitted on Murder Charge," Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1918